Emerging trends in the study of electoral authoritarianism

Abstract

Electoral authoritarian regimes practice authoritarianism behind the institutional facades of representative democracy. They hold regular multiparty elections at the national level, yet violate liberal-democratic minimum standards in systematic and profound ways. Since the end of the Cold War, they have turned into the most common form of non-democratic rule in the world. Responding to the empirical expansion of non-democratic multiparty elections, the study of “electoral authoritarian” regimes has taken center stage in comparative political science. This essay reviews the conceptual and empirical foundations of this flourishing new field of comparative politics, summarizes cutting-edge research on regime trajectories and internal regime dynamics, and lays out substantive issues and methodological desiderata for future research.

Este ensayo hace “un alto en el camino” en la joven literatura comparada sobre autocracias electorales. Ofrece una revisión de sus fundamentos conceptuales y empíricos, resume la investigación de punta sobre trayectorias y dinámicas internas de regímenes electorales autoritarios y esboza elementos sustantivos y metodológicos de la agenda de investigación futura.